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THE SUNNY SOUTH.
Q
The Old Yets and a Memorial Hall.
To-day we have met here together.
For a duty that’s loyal and great ;
W We r io?I°o d ° f °“ r br . i « ht ’ SQnn 7 Southland,
we love our own native State.
We know that our true Southern people
a j if *??? rer to duty’s clear call, P
A 4 d 11 T l . d \ n beautiful Southland,
A soldier’s Memorial Hall.
In ofSi^ a11 Wi u H be ,cherished the memories,
° f h ,?, r ? es who fel1 in the fray;
T wifJ 1 be ^ a S* COr ^ of brave women’s struggles,
Who made for them “Jackets of Gray.” gB
^ tb , e of *!?* So “thland was conquered,
StUl i-r n » derly ’ l earfu11 ^ they laid it aw.y;
Still dear to our hearts is its sacred old story,
forever in memory that story will stay.
Now we are loyal to the Star Spangled Banner,
As peacefully o’er us it waves;
*a s be f ,sh ou F South's sainted memories,
And oft strew with flowers the soldiers’ lone gravel
Veterans! we all warmly salute you,
You who are faltering and old;
E W ?hir! 1 ’ ll f P,8S off the sta « e of Hfe’s action,
With most of your valor untold.
u 1 . w ? ave r °uod your memories a halo,
T faa t brighter and brighter will grow.
Till at last twill be part of the country
That once was wrapped in the vestures of woe.
Never will fade the bright glory,
Forever recorded ’twill be,
Of men who left homes and their loved ones,
1 o enter the conflict with Lee.
war between brothers and country
Was waged by ill-feeling and strife;
But the battle in which all now are fighting.
Is the ever earnest battle of life.
Inthis conflict all are enlisted together;
O, let us work till the set of life’s sun!
“® n t * ie angels will bring us the message:
1 Lome up higher—your duty’s been done.”
Then forgotten will be every sorrow
That has burdened our hearts for long years;
We 11 all sing together sweet anthems,
And move to the “music of spheres.”
Daleville, Miss.
Ada Christine.
Forgotten history.
Er:c’- .«ii Breezy Things Remembered
W’:c:i Recalled.
GREAT POLITICAL CONVENTIONS.
Ftom Lincoln to Cleveland—The Unwritten
History of the Platform of 1864.
There are few men who can beat my record
for attendance as reporter and correspondent
at National Convention^ I saw Lincoln’s
second jiQm4hatk»n in Baltimore in 1864,
-m MfiSTel Ian’s nomination in Chicago in 1864,
and every other nomination until 1888, when
Cleveland was nominated in St. Louis and
Harrison in Chicago. There are men who
have attended all the Democratic Conven
tions in this time, and there are men who
have attended all the Republican Conven
tions in this time ; but the number who have
attended all of both sides is, 1 think, very
small.
1864.
There was nothing of great interest in the
Republican Convention of 1864. The re
nomination of Mr. Lincoln was a foregone
conclusion, brought about by a demand from
the people as opposed to the desire of the
politicians. Missouri cast twenty-two votes
for Gen. Grant, but all the other States were
for Lincoln, and Missouri soon moved to
make the nomination unanimous. There
was a little stir over the vice-presidency, but
Parson Brownlow’s appeal for Andrew John
son carried the day. We are indebted to the
work of this Convention for one of Mr. Lin
coln’s “little stories”—that about “swap
ping horses while crossing a stream.” When
informed of his renomination Mr. Lincoln
said he could not account for it, except by
an incident that happened out in Illinois
once. Two men were riding on horseback
from opposite sides of a small river. They
met in mid-stream, and one of them said to
the other, “That’s a fine’horse; how will you
trade?”
“Oh,” said the other, “it’s a bad time to
swap horses when you’re crossing a stream.”
“Crossing a stream” meant for Mr. Lincoln,
at that time, conducting a war, and “swap
ping horses” meant changing Presidents. _
The Democratic Convention of 1864 met
in Chicago, and nominated McClellan and
Pendleton on a platform which declared the
war a failure and advocated a resort to “the
arts of statesmanship” to restore the Union.
This platform was reported by Mr. C. L.
Vallandigham, of Ohio, who had been exiled
to the South by Gen. Burnside, and after re
maining in that section for some time had
run the blockade and landed in Canada,
where he stood, in the phrase of the day,
“watching and waiting over the border.” A
few days before the meeting of the Conven
tion he crossed the line into the United
States, and appeared at a meeting in Hamil
ton, O., where he made a bitter speech and
was chosen a delegate. The platform which
he, as Chairman of the Committee on Reso
lutions, presented to the Chicago Conven
tion, was, I have every reason to believe,
written by Alexander Jl. Stephens, the Vice-
President of the Confederacy, and given to
Mr. Vallandigham for the purprose for which
it was used. A few years later I was travel
ing through the South as correspondent of
the Cincinnati “Commercial,” and I was
for several days the guest of Mr. Stephens at
his home, which he delighted to call “Liber
ty Hall,” at Crawfordville, Ga. I brought up
the subject on hints given by other Southern
gentlemen, and plumply asked Mr. Stephens
if he was not the author of the Chicago
platform of 1864. His answer was full of
pleasant evasions, which were easily inter
preted as admissions, and finally he said,
with a smile, that a man could not be com
pelled to answer a question when the answer
would criminate himself.
1868.
In 1868 the Republican Convention met in
Chicago on the 20th of May and nomi
nated Grant and Colfax. The Democratic
Convention met in Tammany Hall, New
York, on the 4th of July, and nominated
Seymour and Blair. There was no contest in
Chicago. The Republicans were frightened
into the nomination of Grant by the elections
of 1867, in which Ohio elected a Democratic
Legislature and seated their candidate for
Governor—R. B. Hayes—by a scant majority
of less than 4,000. They also feared the
power of Andy Johnson and “his bread and
butter brigade,” as his Republican followers
were called, to restore the Democratic party
to power, and they took up Grant for his
availability, and for the great popularity
which always accompanies a successful mili
tary career. Grant’s political status was at
the time an unknown quantity, as was well
illustrated by a story that was told of him in
Washington during the impeachment times.
A Senator met him on the street one day, and
asked him what he thought of Andy Johnson
and impeachment. The General turned his
eyes to the ground for a few seconds, then
raised them, and, looking full in the face
of his interrogator,said, “Well, I don’t know
about that; but have you seen Marshal
Brown’s pups?” Marshal Brown was a
neighbor of the General and the proud owner
of a litter of pups which the General greatly
admired. The vice-presidential contest of
1868 was settled in a single ballot by the
nomination of Schuyler Colfax. The chief
competitor of Colfax was Senator Benjamin F.
Wade, and it may be called a contest between
nephew and uncle, as Colfax had recently
married Wade’s niece.
There is more of unwritten history, as it
is called, to the Democratic Convention of
1868 than to any other political gathering
within my recollection. Then, as now, the
Democratic party was divided on the cur
rency. What is now the free silver wing was
then the greenback wing, of which George
H. Pendleton, of Ohio, had made himself, or
had been made, the head and front. The
scheme was to pay off the National debt in
greenbacks, but there never was any intima
tion as to how or when the greenbacks were
to be redeemed. The idea had taken firm
hold in the West, and Mr. Penpleton’s friends
were confident of his nomination and elec
tion. A feature of the display in New York
was the Pendleton Escort, mostly from Cin
cinnati, about a hundred strong, gaudily uni
formed. It was impossible to mistake its
members for Prohibitionists either in New
York or en route, as most of them kept them
selves in a condition described by Lord
Byron as one of “hiccups and happiness”
all the time. But there was a gold wing to
the party, also, and its chief exponent was
Horatio Seymour, who, few days before the
Convention met, made a very strong speech
in favor of gold and against greenbacks. The
day before the Convention, I was walking on
Broadway with Mr. Voorhees, of Indiana,
when we happened to meet Gov. Seymour,
whom Mr. Voorhees knew very well. “Well,
Governor,” said Mr. Voorhees, “I’m afraid
you have ruined my candidate with that
speech.” By “my candidate” Mr. Voorhees
meant Mr. Pendleton, because he was under
instructions for him, but his real favorite
was Thomas A. Hendricks. “Yes,” said
Gov. Seymour, “I think I killed off two can
didates with that speech; one was Horatio
Seymour, the other was George H. Pendle
ton.” He was prophetic as to Pendleton, but
not as to Seymour. Pendleton was doing very
well in the Convention, until at about the
sixth ballot, Mr. Voorhees, Chairman of the
Indiana delegation, rose and moved that the
Indiana delegation have leave to retire for
consultation. Everybody knew that this
meant a break in the Pendleton ranks, and
when the Indiana delegates, which had sup
ported Pendleton with unanimity, returned to
the hall and announced a vote divided almost
evenly between Pendleton and Hendricks,
everybody knew that the cause of “Young
Greenbacks,” as Pendleton had been called,
was on the decline.
The chief event of the unwritten history of
this Convention, was the Chase movement,
which was very promising at one time.
Vallandigham had recently been defeated by
Judge Thurman for Senator to succeed Ben
Wade. Since 1864 I had been on terms of
intimacy with Mr. Vallandigham, brought
about by traveling thousands of miles through
Ohio with him to report his speeches for the
Cincinnati “Commercial.” There was a
great demand for his utterances, and the
“Commercial” undertook to supply it with
verbatim reports, which were intrusted to me.
In traveling through the State Mr. Vallan
digham and I generally occupied adjoining
seats in the cars and Mr. Vallandigham was
in the habit of becoming communicative as
to his hopes and plans. In the campaign of
1867 he frequently said that he had a distinct
understanding with all the party leaders that
if a Democratic Legislature was chosen, he
was to be Senator, Thurman having risked
his chances on the governorship. It so hap
pened that the Republican candidate for Gov
ernor was elected by a small majority, but
that a Democratic Legislature was chosen.
The Pendleton movenent was booming in
Ohio, but its disturbance was threatened by
Judge Thurman, who, beaten for Governor,
determined to be Senator, and declared that,
unless he was chosen to that office he would
not allow the Ohio delegation to be in
structed for Pendleton for President. The
Pendleton managers, chief among them being
the late Washington McLean, of Cincinnati,
saw the force of Thurman’s threat, and im
mediately concluded to throw Vallandigham
overboard and assist in the choice of Thur
man as Senator, which was readily made.
Vallandigham’s heart was broken. He was
during the remainder of his days, a broken-
down man, full of sorrow and thirsting for
revenge. He had been disappointed in the
great ambition of his life. I never knew a
man who had set his heart upon anything in
public life as much as he had set his heart
upon being Senator. He used to say that he
was a Presbyterian and a predestinarian, and
he knew he was predestined for the Senate.
I have heard him declare that if he were
offered the senatorship from one hand and
the presidency from another, he would take
the senatorship, because it let him into “the
great arena of debate.” J^The Ohio delegates
knew of his worth and thought to appease
him by offering him a place among them on
a proxy. Asked by the Chairman of the
Ohio delegation—Gen. McCook—a day or
two before the Convention met, if I knew
whether Vallandigham was in New York
and where he was stopping, I said that he
was in New York and that he was stopping
in a private house up town. Gen. McCook
said he had a message for him, and intrusted
me to deliver it to him orally. I readily fbund
him and told him the Ohio delegation had a
seat for him on the proxy of Theodore Cook,
of Cincinnati, who was willing to withdraw
in his favor. “Ah,” said he, “they had no
use for Vallandigham when they had a sena
torship to give, but now when they have
nothing but an empty honor to give, they
want Vallandigham to take it. But they
are instructed for Young Greenbacks (Pendle
ton) and I am for Old Greenbacks (Chase).
But I’ll go down and see them.” And he
went down to the Fifth Avenue Hotel and
was duly initiated in the Ohio delegation.
Before I left him he said that it had all been
fixed for the nomination of Mr. Chase. He
had met Gov. Seymour a few days before,
and that gentleman had told him that when
put in nomination for President, as was part
of the New York programme, he would de
cline, and in declining would put Mr. Chase
before the Convention as a candidate. “And
Chase will get it without a struggle,” said
Mr. Vallandigham. What followed is well
known. Gov. Seymour was Chairman of the
Convention and was put in nomination fer
President. He made a short speech of decli
nation, closing with the memorable words :
“Gentlemen, I thank you, but your candidate
I can not be.” The balloting went on, and
when Seymour was nominated he made an
other and different speech, accepting the
honor. He was largely urged tc this by
Samuel J. Tilden, who rose on a chair in the
middle of the hall, and insisted that Gov.
Seymour accept the nomination. Vallandig
ham was sitting very near to Seymour while
he was making his last speech, and with
sheer disgust pictured on his face, said in a
voice audible to those around him : “My
God, he’s going to take it.” The Chase
movement never materialized to any great
extent.
1872.
There were three great National Conven
tions in 1872—the Liberal Republican at
Cincinnati, the Democratic at Baltimore, and
the Republican at Philadelphia. The Re
publicans met to renominate Grant, which
they did with great enthusiasm on the first
ballot. The roll was called, and every State
responded with its full vote for the old com
mander. There was no such unanimity,
however, over the choice for Vice-President.
This led to an acrimonious quarrel between
the friends of Schuyler Colfax and the friends
of Senator Henry Wilson. Mr. Wilson
always asserted that he entered the canvass at
the request of Mr. Colfax and his assurance
that he (Colfax) would not be a candidate.
Colfax changed his mind, however, and made
strong efforts to be declared his own success
sor. The principal opponents of Colfax were
the newspaper correspondents, who had come
to dislike him as a puff-seeker. To leave
the name of Mr. Colfax out of the account of
any public function at which he was present
was to be sent for and censured. Senator
Nye, of Nevada, once chuckled in the cloak
room over the possession of a curiosity for
which Barnum would give much money.
Come to find out, it was a newspaper in which
the name of Colfax did not appear even once.
The scheme for his defeat was well managed.
The correspondents made a table of the prob
able result of the first ballot. It showed about
one-third for Colfax, one-third for Wilson
and the remainder scattered among favorite
sons from the different States. This was be
fore the adoption of the rule which now pre
vents any State from changing its vote until
another ballot has been taken. The great
point with the Wilson men was to get the
first change in their favor. They surrounded
the Chairman, and when the roll-call was
completed they shouted to him, “The gentle
man from Virginia,” whom they knew was
ready to change his State’s vote from John F
Continued on Twelfth page.
